I've been working on and off on my 64 custom sport for about 6 months. Car was purchased with no engine, tranny out of car no tags on wiring etc. I have since installed the engine/tranny and have wired the car to what i think is correct, the electrical drawings I used and wire color coding matched the car especially to the starter.
I tried to turn over the engine to see if all was good and nothing, battery is new, starter is new and will turn over when jumpered.
Engine is a 283, 2 speed Powerglide, HEI Dstributor.
Is there a Neutral Safety Switch? I did not see anything on the tranny, would it be on the shifter?
If it's col. shift Neutral safety sw. is on the col. just under dash will have 2 purple wires & poss. 2 grn. ones for B/up lights if you have them. If floor shift, it's inside the console at base of shifter.
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Some times I wake up GRUMPY, but today I let her sleep in !!!!!!!!BLACKSTOCK Ont.
Some may say otherwise but I would start with a test lite at the starter. Check to make sure the big purple wire is on the inside terminal on the solenoid. If so, put a test lite on that wire and get someone to try cranking. If the light comes on, that's all good and it's a starter or solenoid problem.
If no light, as suggested, I would go to the neutral safety switch and test for power on either of the two terminals with the purple wire. If both have power there then it's between there and the starter, quite possibly the connector at the firewall.
If no power there, go to the back of the ignition switch and see if there is power off the switch into the purple wire when you hit crank.
Just keep working your way back, you'll find it.
And if I missed something writing this, hopefully others who read this will let me know!
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
I checked for power at the solenoid with igniton on and a very faint light came on.
I checked for power at the R terminal and also a light came on but much brighter.
Maybe an explanatin of how I wired the starter would help. There are three wires going to the starter, the purple wire I put on the S terminal the olther wire with a small connection I put on the R terminal and there was another wire with a large round connection that fit on the terminal were the battery cable goes. Does this sound correct.
Large wire and purple sound fine, the other one you don't need with an HEI because it went to the coil if you had points. On a separate note, did you run a new 12volt wire for the HEI power?
Anyway, a faint light sounds bad at the S terminal. This was when someone was hitting start on the ignition switch while you tested? Do you have a volt meter? If so you could check voltage there but I am betting it will be low.
If it is low, then go back and check on the output side of the neutral safety switch and see how it is there.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
I did not run a seprate wire to the HEI distributor, there was an exisitng wire by the distributor that had 12 volts on with the key in the run positon so I used this.
The check was done with someone trying to start the engine, light was off with key off then the faint light with key in the start postion, I will check voltage at S terminal and remove wire from the R terminal.
Tomorrow I will check the voltages at the neutral safetry swith and let you know.
All sounds pretty much what I expected. It sure sounds like a bad connection somewhere farther up. For the record, I have a similar problem with my 65 Acadian right now and I just can't find it.
On the S, the test light should be as bright as if you had put it on the battery.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
so I finally got around to checking some voltages and I had full battery voltage (13) at the S terminal with the key in the run positon and when put to the start positon the voltage dropped from 13 to 9. Nothing happened so I played with the key and the igniton has a dead spot but when it tried to turn the engine over it was like a loud thunk and shook the car, can someone explain this. I even grounded the engine using jumper cables and the same problem.
Just to make sure the starter was fine I jumped it and the starter turned over fine.
First thing is a new ignition switch and I will continue but that loud thunk was eerie
The reason the voltage for your ign. wire reduced to 9v comes from the fact that the 64 used resistor wire to the ignition to reduce from 12v to 9 when cranking to protect the points. HEI will require 12v when cranking and to run, so replace the resistor wire if thats the one u connected the HEI to. Brian
